Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welleswas an American actor, director, writer, and producer who worked in theatre, radio, and film. He is remembered for his innovative work in all three: in theatre, most notably Caesar, a Broadway adaptation of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; in radio, the 1938 broadcast "The War of the Worlds", one of the most famous in the history of radio; and in film, Citizen Kane, consistently ranked as one of the all-time greatest films...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth6 May 1915
CityKenosha, WI
CountryUnited States of America
FDR used to say, 'You and I are the two best actors in America'.
The two things you cannot do effectively on stage are pray and copulate.
Everything about me is a contradiction, and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There's a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don't reconcile the poles. You just recognize them.
I know people who have a much better recollection of their childhood than I do. They remember very well when they were a year and a half and two years old. I've only one or two daguerreotypes that come to mind.
In my opinion, there are two things that can absolutely not be carried to the screen: the realistic presentation of the sexual act and praying to God.
Working is part of life, I don't know how to distinguish between the two... Work is an expression of life.
A long-playing full shot is what always separates the men from the boys. Anybody can make movies with a pair of scissors and a two-inch lens.
I have wasted the greater part of my life looking for money and trying to get along, trying to make my work from this terribly expensive paintbox, which is a movie. And I've spent too much energy on things that have nothing to do with making a movie. It's about two percent moviemaking and ninety-eight percent hustling It's no way to spend a life.
There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror.
I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Computers combine things to make new knowledge at such high speed that we cannot absorb it.
A toast, Jedediah, to love on my terms. Those are the only terms anybody ever knows - his own.
When television came along, I'd already done more than 10 years of radio work and I thought everyone would want me. I sat around waiting for the phone to ring - and it didn't.